Diet Food

You don't lose your innocence when you start having sex; you lose it long before then, the day you find out that pizza is fattening. That is when you're jerked out of paradise into the cold, prying world of Nutrition Facts.

Today's kids grow up faster than ever...

"That little piggy can't have roast beef. She's on a diet."

Did we ever vote on Nutrition Facts? I personally prefer the old system: Ask me no questions; I'll tell you no lies.

Ever peek at the Twinkies label in the middle of a binge? Hmm. I just met the whole month's requirement for saturated fat. Maybe I can get a credit toward next month.

In time we developed the willpower to ignore nutrition facts, so what did they do? They moved that information to the title. Gentle reader, I give you ... Nabisco's 100 Calorie Snack Packs.

Nabisco says that it helps with "portion control." What are we, friggen lab rats?

"They took my pellets, man. I've been hittin' that lever all day. They took my pellets!"

Instead of a toy prize, you get a free measuring tape. So it goes.

Whatever happened to that original peace, when we made choo-choo sounds in our Gerber banana slime? How did that turn into stomach stapling? It's not that people staple their stomachs; it's that they can't stop talking about it...

"So far I've I lost 65 pounds, and would you like to hear everything I've eaten since February?"

Maybe they could go the extra mile and get their mouths stapled.

My aunt has been on a diet since 1962: South Beach, Hamptons, The Zone -- all the bad neighborhoods. She says the first week of a diet is always the hardest (probably because by the second week she's off it).

This week my aunt is eating pine nuts and flaxseed. I'm watching her closely to make sure she doesn't stool on my windshield.

Maybe the supermarket is supposed to make us crazy. Why else do we stand in line staring at celebrity cellulite WHILE SURROUNDED BY CANDY BARS.

"How to Make Your Own Cheesecake," "Diets to Trim Down before Summer," "Ten Reasons to Feel Bad about Everything ... According to Prophecy."

What we could really use is freedom from the press.

And the models keep getting thinner. Can you see Vogue magazine in the hands of Namibian bush people?

"Bad news: Famine has spread to America."

Remember when there were just calories? Life was so simple. Now there are carbs, sodium, sugars, sugar alcohols, good fat, bad fat, kinky little trans fat. Let's hope the USDA doesn't get its way with restaurants ...

"Our special tonight is filet mignon, which contains 25 grams of fat. I recommend the house merlot despite its carbs."

Consumer psychologists -- who study the mind not to better humanity but to sell processed foods -- are enjoying the ride. Their most recent contribution: water bottles that have hourglass figures like Marilyn Monroe. Who killed herself.

And is it just me, or is diabetes airborne? Growing up, I never heard the word; now it has its own aisle at Rite-Aid. It reminds me of this commercial: "You are getting sick ... To repeat, you are getting sick ... And when you do, there's Cure-it-ol."

I myself would rather explode from diabetes than spend one moment doing this around a dessert cart...

"No, I really shouldn't, but don't go. Maybe I could just smell the tiramisu. Someday. When I've earned it."

I was about to return to K-Pax when I saw on a box of cookies the most beautiful thing ever printed. It read, without apology or explanation, "Enjoy life. Eat freely."

I felt so heard, as though we had together arrived at some universal truth, the basis of a new religion. I bought ten boxes not to eat but to circulate as literature. Perhaps we, The Free Eaters, will get together and remember that the same force which beats our hearts and grows the crops and spins the planets will NOT be outsmarted by Nabisco.

And if anyone says, "I shouldn't" or "diabetes anything," I will strangle them with a measuring tape. According to prophecy.